GROUPS are cancelling their Christmas nights out following fresh concerns over Covid-19, according to a local business owner.

Alan Russell, owner of the Longniddry Inn, said that bigger parties had been cancelling bookings even before the latest announcements.

He said: “We’re finding the bigger parties are cancelling.

“A few party nights reduced in numbers over Friday and Saturday, and we’ve cancelled them for this Friday and Saturday because there’s not enough numbers to make it a good night out.”

But Mr Russell said most bookings were being postponed rather than cancelled, with dates being transferred to the New Year.

He said: “A lot of people have decided to carry bookings over to the end of January, beginning of February, and have a night out then. But it has been a big loss. We normally have Dunbar Grammar School teachers here, they were due Friday of this week, and there’s 70 of them cancelled, so it’s big numbers that we’re losing.”

But Mr Russell was pleased there had been no “cancellation” of Christmas and people would still be able to eat out on Christmas Day.

And he admitted the situation would not be as bad as last year.

He added: “This time we’ve been given a wee bit of notice.

“We can assure [customers] we’ve got everything covered, the staff still wear masks, they sanitise every table, the tables are still reasonably distanced, and it’s all table service here anyway. We’re fine.”

Meanwhile, Philip Mellor, owner of Dunmuir Hotel in Dunbar, said he had already prepared for a potential lockdown by not taking Christmas bookings.

He said: “We took the decision early on in the year not to run Christmas parties, which was a decision well taken.

“I’m aware of colleagues who have lost hundreds of thousands of pounds having to cancel Christmas party nights, and we weren’t affected by that. But public health comes first, without a doubt.”

Mr Mellor also said details on financial compensation from the Scottish Government were thin on the ground so far, adding that the hospitality industry was “taking it all on the chin”.

The hotel recently received planning permission to remove its events room and replace it with an extension which will hold a restaurant and five more bedrooms, as “events were just wiped out by Covid”, Mr Mellor added.